


By Side

by regenderate



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 22:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14798942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: Willow and Tara do a spell to reach into a demon dimension, and suddenly Fred Burkle falls out of the sky.Vaguely season 5. AU where Fred shows up on BtVS instead of AtS (and then all my favorite characters can be in one place...) Buffyverse Femslash Week 2018 Day 3: Polyamorous Ships





	By Side

**Author's Note:**

> this is completely unedited. I'm really down to the wire on femslash week today, and I just ate a LOT of beans, which isn't an excuse so much as a fun fact about me. I still think it's pretty good, but... we'll see if I still think that after I reread it

Willow and Tara find Fred accidentally-- they’re reaching into a demon dimension for a particularly dangerous spell, and suddenly a woman falls out of nothing right onto all their candles.

Tara runs to get some water and Willow immediately starts putting out the candles, but the woman just scrambles away, batting at the little fires singeing her already-ragged dress. 

“Who are you?” she asks from the corner of the room, sitting with her knees to her chest and peering over them at Willow. She’s wearing glasses, and Willow is fleetingly reminded of an owl.

“Who are  _ you _ ?” she asks.

The woman shakes her head and says nothing. Just then, Tara comes back with a bowl filled with water, which she puts down immediately upon seeing that all the fire is out. She crouches near the stranger, not getting too close, but not too far away, either.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m Tara. Do you know where you came from?”

“Where am I now?” the woman asks.

“Sunnydale, California,” Tara tells her. 

“I’m not in Pylea?”

“What’s Pylea?” Willow asks.

“Oh, you’re lucky you don’t know,” the strange woman says. She seems to be relaxing a little bit. 

“What’s your name?” Tara asks.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had one,” the woman says, “but I’m pretty sure they used to call me Fred.”

“Okay, Fred,” Tara says. “We’re going to help you, okay?”

“I got so lost,” Fred says.

“I know,” Tara tells her. “I know. Are you hungry? Do you need food?”

“Do we have food?” Willow asks.

“The dining hall is still open,” Tara replies. “I have an extra meal swipe.”

“I haven’t eaten real food in so long,” Fred says.

Tara stands up. 

“I’m going to get you some,” she tells Fred. “Are you allergic to anything?”

Fred shakes her head, and Tara stands up and goes, leaving Fred and Willow alone.

“So, um, where are you from?” Willow asks. “Both, you know, in the immediate and the general sense.”

“Texas,” Fred says. “And Pylea. What happened?”

“I’m not really sure,” Willow says. “Tara and I were just doing a spell, and then, poof, there you were.”

“Poof,” Fred repeats.

“Yep. We were looking into a demon dimension.”

“That sounds like Pylea,” Fred says. “I guess you’re lucky you got me and not anything else.”

“What happened from your side?” Willow asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Fred answers. “I guess I just kinda fell through the ground, and then I was here. I was trying to work out the equation to get me home, but I guess I don’t need it anymore.”

“Equation?” Willow asks, suddenly much more focused.

“I’m a physicist,” Fred explains. “I’ve been trying to work out how to get myself home for years, but it just hasn’t happened yet.”

“Well, this isn’t Texas,” Willow says, “but it’s a hell of a lot closer.”

“I was studying in LA anyway,” Fred says. “So this is pretty good, actually. I could have wound up in China.”

“It’s probably good you came here.”

“Yeah.” Fred is still curled in the corner, but she seems more relaxed, at least. “This room looks nice.”

“Most of the stuff is Tara’s,” Willow says. “She’s really good at the whole decorating thing.”

Just then, Tara walks in, holding a cafeteria tray.

“You have no clue how hard it is to sneak one of these out of the dining hall,” she says, handing the tray to Fred. Fred has to uncurl a little bit to take it, and then she begins to shovel the food into her mouth, looking up, afraid, at Tara and Willow as she does it. Tara and Willow back away, sitting on the bed.

“This is the best food I’ve ever eaten,” Fred says when she finishes, putting the tray down next to her. “Do you want me to take the tray somewhere?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Tara says.

That night, Willow and Tara curl up on the floor while Fred sleeps in the bed. It’s been five years since she’s even  _ seen _ a bed, she tells them. It’s seventy-five degrees outside, but that doesn’t stop Fred from surrounding herself in blankets.

The next day, in between classes, Willow and Tara talk to Fred, trying to figure out a more permanent path for her.

“We’re not letting you stay in a motel,” Tara says. “Too dangerous.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Fred tells her. “I’ve been living in dangerous for years now.”

“No,” Tara says. “Not in Sunnydale.”

“We could ask Giles,” Willow says. “He’d help.”

“Who’s Giles?” Fred asks.

Willow and Tara look at each other, trying to figure out how to explain.

“He’s a friend,” Tara finally says. “Should we tell Buffy?”

“Buffy’s another friend,” Willow tells Fred. “She fights vampires.”

“Oh, vampires,” Fred says, shivering. 

“Do you want to go home to Texas?” Tara asks.

Fred immediately shakes her head at that, and Tara doesn’t mention it again.

In the end, they do ask Giles, who is more than willing to let Fred use his spare room. So Fred moves in, and slowly she becomes a part of the Scooby life. At first, she just sits in her room at Giles’s, drawing on the walls (and, later, on paper that Giles hangs to try and save his walls), but soon enough she starts to hang out with Dawn, and eventually Joyce gives her a job at the gallery, and she starts to think about going to UC Sunnydale to finish school. After a few months, she even manages to get an apartment (rent is low in Sunnydale, probably due to the whole vampire thing), and she seems to be getting healthier by the day.

Willow and Tara still feel an urge to help her readjust, so they talk to her as much as they can, and eventually Fred becomes their friend. She’s interested in witchcraft, and she loves to talk to Willow about science, and then it turns out she and Tara were on the same conspiracy forums as teenagers, and their conversations turn from check-ins about Fred’s mental health to excited group babbles about the intersections between science and magic and society.

It’s during one of those babbles that something shifts a little, for a moment, and suddenly there’s something thick hanging in the air. Willow looks at Tara, and Tara looks at Fred, and Fred looks back at Willow, and they suddenly understand that something has changed.

In the moment, they all ignore it, and start talking even faster to cover it up. But everything’s just a little awkward after that.

When Fred goes back to her apartment, Willow and Tara talk about it.

“That was weird,” Willow says.

“Not really,” Tara replies. 

“Is it weird that I kind of like her?” Willow asks. “In, you know, a gay way. Not that you should feel threatened, or anything.”

“I feel the same way,” Tara says.

They talk to Fred about it the next day. She stares at them, mouth open, and then she says, “I’ve never-- I mean-- I’ve never been into girls before.”

“That’s what I said,” Willow answers. “I guess Tara’s just that good, huh?”

Fred laughs, and the ice is broken. 

“We should try a date,” Tara says. “All three of us.”

“Coffee?” Fred asks. 

“Works for me,” Willow answers.

Coffee goes well, and so they wind up right back in Willow’s and Tara’s dorm room, lying side by side by side in the bed, almost completely silent. 

“I’m glad I came here,” Fred says, and Willow and Tara hum in agreement.


End file.
